Hyderabad: The scorching summer heat is driving people into air-conditioned malls where they’re finding it tough to resist the many offers being thrown at them. Buy one, get one; buy one, take home two; 25-50 percent markdowns — it’s all happening inside stores at big malls.
While the offers are lucrative and get the customers into shopping overdrive, are the terms as good as they seem to be? A closer look at shelves by a smart and not-really-in-a-hurry customer shows that a majority of the products stocked on the first and second shelves are nearing their expiry date; most are set to expire in a month or two.
TEAM DC visited 20 retail outlets in the city and found that maximum walk-ins were customers with limited time to shop and hence not keen to check expiry or best-before dates. A survey of Indian consumers who shop in malls has revealed that 82 per cent do not even read labels of best before, or expiry dates before buying products off the shelf.
Market research and surveys have also shown that people are happy when given “offers” and choose to fill up their trolleys when they see them. However, it’s imperative to watch out for food products, especially cold drinks such as soda, carbonated drinks, energy drinks, diet sodas and packaged/ready-to-eat food. DC found that most food items available on offer were scheduled to pass their best-before date in a month; on the outskirts of Hyderabad, this time was just 15 days away.
Flavoured beverages of guava, grape and pomegranates flavours as well as traditional drinks like jaljeera, jeera soda, rose water and gulab sharbat were on offer. Consumers must buy these carefully, ensure that they pick up items that are nowhere near the expiry date. Also check if the bottles are damaged or tetrapacks are puffy — two indications that should sound you off.
A large number of sauces, including soya sauce, Schezwan sauce, pasta and pizza sauce, mayonnaise and others were available at 30 per cent discount. The reason? They were all best before May 2017.
Popular juices like apple, mango, guava, pineapple and grape can be had for discounts ranging from 15 to 30 per cent. On weekends, special offers mean that consumers can take home a pack free if they pay for one. Two for the price of one. Who cares about expiry dates then? But with only one month of shelf life left, the nutritional value of these products is debatable.
Nutritionist Gayatri Devi explained, “Chinese sauces have ajino moto in them. That makes it seem fresh, but the nutritional values are not intact as they have been preserved for too long. There is a raging debate on best before and expiry dates where many manufacturers argue that when it is used before time nutritional values can’t be disputed. But what most consumers do is they pick up the product, but use it over a period of two to three months.”
Ice-creams routinely selling on a one-on-one scheme, but some packs are nearing their expiry date. Distress selling has been the mantra for ice-creams in summer where maximum stocks are out in the market in retail shops and kirana stores. Mall authorities claim that people are waiting for offers.
“Maximum sales are recorded during offers than any other days. For this reason, weekdays have been fixed for vegetable sales and on weekends we have offers on fruits and beverages,” said the operator of a superstore at a mall.Even fruits and vegetables are offered with offers, especially during the weekend. Watermelons, sun melons and musk melons being sold at Rs15 per piece. Kiwis are also being sold for Rs10 per piece over the weekend, and finding many takers.
Since fruits have no expiry date mentioned, customers do pick them up but later complain that there was no taste and the fruit was too soft.A soft fruit is indication that it has been in cold storage for way too long. But with vegetables and fruits being stored in air-conditioned units, how can customers ascertain how fresh they are?
Nutritionist Sujatha Stephen explained, “If the vegetables are very hard like drumsticks, bottle gourd or bitter gourd, they must not be picked up as the hardness shows they are not fresh. It is important to feel vegetables and fruits.” Clearly, going in for offers isn’t what makes a smart shopper. A smart shopper is one who weighs his or her options and makes the best choice instead of ruing shopping decisions later.
